Against the Wind (3 page)

“Car trouble?” Jackson asked, wondering if she would explain or tell him it was none of his business.

“I sold my car. It wasn't any good for country living, anyway.”

He walked over to the little Toyota pickup. The first thing he noticed was that all four tires were bare.

“I know I probably shouldn't say this, but you realize those tires have got to be replaced.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean they aren't safe for you to drive on, let alone haul your little girl back and forth to town.”

She started toward him down the steps, the white sneakers instantly sucking down in the icy, slushy mud. “Are you sure?”

“I'm sure.” He walked around the pickup, saw that the leather seats were cracked and the carpets worn. “Did you have anyone look at this truck before you bought it?”

“I didn't know who to ask. I don't know anyone around here anymore. It looked like it would get good gas mileage and it has four-wheel drive.”

“The damned thing's ten years old.”

She stiffened. “It was all I could afford. Now if you will excuse me—”

“Whoa—wait a minute.” She turned back to him. He tried not to notice how pretty she looked in the morning sun with her dark hair pulled into a long gleaming braid and her skin glowing as if it were lit from within.

“What do you mean, ‘all you can afford'? Word around here was you married some wealthy guy in L.A. If he just passed away, you ought to be pretty well fixed for money.”

“Well, I'm not. By the time the estate paid Andrew's debts, there wasn't much of anything left.”

“Couldn't tell by that fancy fur coat you were wearing when I saw you on the road.”

Her chin inched up. “That's sold, too, if it's any of your business.” She turned and started walking and when he looked at her mud-covered sneakers, it occurred to him that she really might not have any money. He should have been elated by this little crumb of pay-back but he wasn't.

Christ.

No wonder she wanted to stay in the cottage. It was all she could afford. Which could be the reason she didn't seem particularly grief-stricken by her husband's death. She had probably married the guy for his money and then found out he didn't have any.

Sarah disappeared inside the little house. Against all his better instincts, he followed. He rapped on the door, and an instant later, she pulled it open.

“Was there something else you wanted?”

“I just thought I'd check, see if you're getting settled in all right.”

“The rest of our things are supposed to arrive tomorrow.”

“The rest?”

“There isn't all that much. I sold everything I could to get enough money to come out here.” She sighed, looped a wisp of dark hair behind her ear. “I don't know why I'm telling you this. It's hardly your concern.”

“Maybe not.” But somehow it almost seemed as if it was. “How's Holly doing?”

“She loves it here.”

“Mr. Raines!” She spotted him on the porch just then, bolted through the door and slid to a halt at his feet. “Mama said the next time I saw you I should ask you if it's all right if I get a puppy?”

He couldn't help a smile. His foreman, Jimmy Threebears, and his two boys had a couple of mutts. One more could hardly hurt. Still, it would just make things harder if he decided to send them packing.

Holly was looking up at him with big blue eyes so full of hope Jackson groaned inside. He loved kids.
There was no way he was going to say no to this sweet little girl.

“It's all right. Matter of fact, my foreman's dog just had a litter. They're border collies. You want to take a look? You might like to have one of the pups.”

Holly whirled toward her mother, her long blond ponytail swinging out behind her. “Mommy, can I, please?”

Sarah smiled. She had pretty white teeth and full pink lips. Jackson remembered that smile and his jaw tightened. That same warm smile had been deceptive in the past.

Likely, it still was.

 

The UPS truck delivered the boxes with the rest of Sarah's clothes and personal items the following day. Olivia Jones, the housekeeper she had met the day after her arrival, came over with a hamburger-mac-and-cheese casserole that smelled so good her stomach growled.

“Looks like you got plenty of work ahead of you. I figured with this you wouldn't have to stop and cook dinner.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Jones. It looks wonderful.”

“It's just Livvy, same as when you used to come into the ice-cream shop.”

Sarah remembered her from back in those days. Livvy had always been friendly and smiling, just as she was now.

Livvy set the casserole down on the kitchen table. “I figured macaroni might be something your little girl would like.”

“Holly likes just about everything. Except avocados.” Sarah laughed. “She calls them squishy green things.”

Livvy chuckled. “I'll remember that.”

For the rest of the day, Sarah unpacked and put things away while Holly played with the puppy Jackson had given her, a black-and-white border collie Holly named Rags.

Sarah had gone with them out to the barn so that Holly could choose which pup she wanted. They met Jackson's foreman, a big Sioux Indian named Jimmy Threebears. Jimmy had two boys, one ten and one twelve, but no wife.

According to Livvy, Annie Baylor Threebears, a waitress at the Wind Canyon Café, had left her husband and sons five years ago and never been heard from since. From what Sarah could tell, Jimmy had done a good job raising his boys.

Eventually, the long day came to an end and Sarah surveyed her work in the cottage, pleased with all she had done. Tomorrow would be her first day working at the newspaper. She had found a day-care facility not far from the office and Holly was excited at the prospect of making new friends. Sarah was excited to be starting her first real job as a reporter.

Oh, it wasn't anything big. Not much happened in a town the size of Wind Canyon, which was one of the reasons the job appealed to her.

She smiled as she broke down and stacked the last of the empty cardboard boxes. Writing stories about everyday occurrences, working to make them interesting and entertaining, was going to be fun. She had done something similar when she had written for the
Daily Bruin
at UCLA—before she had dropped out in her senior year to marry Andrew.

An image of her husband in one of his rages popped
into her mind and a shudder ran down her spine. God, what a fool she had been.

She shook her head, dislodging the memory. A few years after the marriage, she had started taking correspondence courses and eventually gotten her Bachelor's degree, which had helped in getting her the job in Wind Canyon. Andrew wouldn't let her take night classes or she would have finished sooner.

Sarah thought of the husband she had once believed she loved, the cruel, hateful man he had become, and resisted an urge to shiver. She walked over to the window and stood in the sunshine pouring through the glass, hoping to erase the chill.

S
arah pulled her blue pickup over to the curb in front of the Busy Bee Day-Care Center. Holly waited on the porch, along with a couple of other kids. The little girl ran around to the passenger side and climbed into the truck, settled herself in her booster seat, and Sarah helped her fasten the seat belt. The pickup was sporting a new set of tires, thanks to the small amount of room she had left on her credit card, so she wasn't worried about getting safely home.

She turned the vehicle onto the street leading out of town and settled in for the drive back to the ranch. She looked over at her daughter, who peered at the thick growth of forest passing by outside the window.

“How was your first day, honey?” Sarah asked.

“I met a girl named Alice. Everyone calls her Allie. She showed me how to play a really cool card game called Go Fish.”

Sarah smiled. “That's great, baby.”

She thought of her own first day. She had been introduced to the owner of the paper, Smiley Reed, an older, pudgy, balding man with a penchant for cigars. And just like in the movies, everyone called him “chief.”

The paper's only other reporter, Mike Stevens, was a couple of years younger than Sarah but had more experience. He was tall, sandy-haired and not bad-looking. Mike covered the headline news, weather and sports, while Sarah was assigned to personal interest stories, and pretty much anything newsworthy that she could come up with.

“To start with, just get out there and get acquainted with the town,” Smiley had said, handing her a box of business cards he'd had printed especially for her. “Stop in the stores and meet the owners, see who's doing what. You'll be surprised what you might find out.”

Sarah proudly held on to the cards, the first she'd ever had. She was fine with the idea. She'd had to come up with news for the college paper. This shouldn't be any more difficult.

She spent the afternoon milling around town, getting reacquainted. Wind Canyon looked just like a Wyoming town should, with a long main street that still had old covered boardwalks running along both sides. Bars, restaurants and boutiques lined the street, a lot more of them now that the quaint little Western town had been discovered by tourists.

Wind Canyon had grown quite a bit in the years Sarah had been gone and now there were shops and restaurants on the side streets, as well. She was surprised to discover some of the people in town still remembered her.

“I sure was sorry about what happened to your folks,” Fred Wilkins said, owner of Wilkins' Mercantile. “They were real nice people.”

“Thank you.” Sarah fought a wave of sadness she hadn't let surface in years, not since the awful news of her parents' death had reached her when she was in college. Her overwhelming grief and loneliness were part of the reason she had married Andrew that year.

Sarah left the mercantile, leaving a card with Mr. Wilkins, as well as Mrs. Potter at the antiques shop and a number of other business owners, asking them to call her if they had something of interest for the paper. She smiled to think how well she had been received.

Sarah was still smiling when she arrived back at Raintree Ranch and she and Holly drove up in front of the cottage. Then she saw the front door standing wide-open and her smile disappeared.

“Who's in our house, Mommy?”

“I don't know.” She cracked open the car door and climbed out. “You wait here, okay?”

She walked toward the house, wondering if the wind or an animal might have pushed open the door. The lock was old. Maybe it had just given way. As she climbed up to the porch to inspect the lock, she caught a glimpse of the living room through the front window.

“Oh, my God!”

She forced herself to walk inside, her legs beginning to tremble. The entire cottage was a shambles, the sofa cushions ripped open, the curtains torn down from the windows, pots and pans tossed out of the cupboards, broken dishes all over the floor. “Oh, my God,” she repeated a second time.

Holly raced through the front door. “Mama! Someone
tore up our house!” The little girl started crying and it was all Sarah could do not to join her. She lifted Holly into her arms and turned at the sound of a man's deep voice.

“What the hell…?”

“Jackson…” Of all the people she didn't want to see in that moment, Jackson Raines topped the list. She had promised there wouldn't be any trouble. This looked like very big trouble to her.

She set Holly back on her feet and the little girl clung to her waist. Sarah swallowed. “Someone…someone broke in.”

“I can see that.”

She covered her mouth with her hand to hold back a sob.

“You stay here,” Jackson commanded. “I'll make sure they're not still around.” He left her there and went through each room in the house, then returned to the living room.

“Whoever did it is long gone. You have any idea who it might be?”

Sarah shook her head. She looked at him and her eyes filled with tears. “Why would someone do this?”

Jackson's gaze held a trace of pity. It was overshadowed by anger. “I don't know, but I'm sure as hell going to find out.” He surveyed the overturned sofa and chairs, then the destruction in the bedroom, which looked as bad as the rest of the house.

“What are we gonna do, Mama?” Holly stared up at her with tears in her big blue eyes.

Jackson strode toward the little girl, crouched down in front of her, and she went into his arms as if she had done it a thousand times. “Don't you worry, honey. We'll
put this place back just the way it was.” He looked over at Sarah, must have noticed the pallor of her face and the way she stood there trembling.

He came to his feet, but kept hold of Holly's hand. “That goes for you, too, Sarah. I'll get Livvy over here to help and between the three of us we'll have this place back in shape in no time.”

She just nodded. Her throat was too tight to speak.

Jackson let go of Holly's hand and she ran back to Sarah.

“Nothing like this has ever happened on the ranch before,” Jackson said. “We'll find out who did it and make sure it doesn't happen again.”

Sarah made no reply.
Nothing like this has ever happened before.
The words sent a chill down her spine. Surely this had nothing to do with her, nothing to do with Andrew and the past she had run from in L.A.

Surely her problems hadn't followed her.

But as she looked at the destruction in the cottage, Sarah felt sure they had.

 

Jackson met Sheriff Weber in front of the cottage and they walked inside together. Livvy had taken Sarah and little Holly up to the main house and was distracting them with milk and cookies.

Weber, a tall, heavyset man with iron-gray hair, lifted his brown felt cowboy hat and scratched his head. “Worst case of vandalism I've seen round these parts in years. Any idea who might have done it?”

“No, but a woman and her little girl just moved into the place. I imagine they aren't feeling real safe right now.”

“Who's that?”

“Sarah Allen. Her family used to live here. Livvy tells me her folks died about ten years ago in a car accident. Husband died not long ago.”

“I remember the accident that killed her folks. Some drunk crossed the center line out on the highway coming into town. I'll talk to Sarah, tell her we're looking into this. Odds are it was a bunch of teenagers, maybe someone whose family is camped around here. I'll take a drive through the campgrounds, see what I can come up with.”

“Thanks, Ben.”

The sheriff went out and got his camera, took a string of photos documenting the damage. “Insurance gonna take care of this?”

“Only the building's covered.”

“Figures.” The sheriff walked back outside and the two of them went up to the main house so Ben could speak to Sarah.

As soon as Weber left, Jackson led the small group back to the cottage to begin cleaning up.

“Looks like you'll need a new sofa and chairs,” he said to Sarah. “Some new curtains, too. Soon as you get time, we'll go into town and get whatever you need.”

She gazed up at him in surprise. “You're going to replace everything?”

“You didn't think I would? What happened wasn't your fault.”

Sarah glanced away. “Thank you.”

When she looked back at him, there was something in her face… It had never occurred to him that Sarah's presence might have anything to do with the vandalism. Watching her now, he wondered.

Jackson made a mental note to call his brother,
Devlin, have him do some digging. Dev owned a chain of security companies in the Southwest, including one in L.A. Mostly he managed them from his house in Scottsdale, close to the Phoenix branch. These days, his employees did most of the legwork, but Dev was still one of the best investigators in the business.

Jackson would ask Dev to sniff around, find out what he could about the young widow and her daughter.

 

Dev wasn't home. His brother was off somewhere with one of his lady friends, or so Devlin's Phoenix office manager said. Jackson wasn't surprised. A few years back, his youngest brother had suffered a bad breakup with the girl he planned to marry and since then, had become a dedicated bachelor.

“Can I take a message?” the manager asked.

“Tell him Jackson called. Tell him I need to talk to him.” Jackson hung up the phone. He'd get a return call sooner or later, but he wasn't holding his breath. Dev liked to live big and he usually did just that.

Instead of waiting anxiously to hear from him, Jackson spent the morning in the basement, working out on the weights, punching the heavy bag, then spending some time on the speed bag. He liked the physical exercise that had come to be a habit, liked to keep in shape. When he finished, he showered and pulled on his jeans and headed down to his foreman Jimmy Threebears's house, part of the original ranch compound, three bedrooms with a wraparound, screened-in front porch.

The residence, which sat on a knoll across from the barn, had been remodeled a number of times, and Jackson had done a bit more modernizing of the old wooden structure when he bought the ranch four years ago. As
he approached, he saw Jimmy's boys playing ball out in front.

“Where's your dad?” Jackson asked.

“He's up on the ridgeline, sir.” Sam, the twelve-year-old, shoved a hand through his gleaming black shoulder-length hair. He was a good-looking kid—both of them were. They got good grades and were very good athletes. Jimmy had a right to be proud of them.

“Dad says those loggers are filling the stream up with mud again. He went up to take another look.”

Jackson's jaw tightened. He had actually thought he'd had problems when he'd worked in Houston. After high school, he had used his boxing scholarship to earn a degree in geology then landed a job with the small, newly formed Wildcat Oil. He had taken part of his salary in stock—the smartest move he ever made.

When the company expanded, then went public, he made enough money to retire from the oil business and live in comfort, buy the old Simmons ranch and become a cattleman—which had been his lifelong dream.

One thing he'd learned—a rancher faced just as many problems as an oil company and made a whole lot less money.

And now the damned logging companies were making things worse. They were cutting down trees in the national forest that bordered the ranch and causing him all kinds of trouble.

He shook his head. He still couldn't believe the taxpayers paid to build roads so the bastards could cut down trees. They were taking out those big seven-hundred-year-old ponderosas as if they had a right. Only God had a right to those trees as far as Jackson was concerned.
Somewhere along the way, the politicians had sure as hell gotten things screwed up.

He looked over at the older boy, who was nearly as tall as his dad but lean and lanky instead of muscular like Jimmy. Sam tossed the baseball into the air and caught it.

“I could use a little help,” Jackson said. “You boys game?”

“Sure.” Gibby grinned, a ten-year-old version of his older brother with slightly shorter black hair. “Just tell us what you need us to do.”

Always ready for a little diversion, both boys followed him off toward the barn. Half an hour later, they had loaded the old sofa he remembered storing in the loft into the back of his truck, dusted it off real good, then the boys jumped up in the bed and he drove the load down to Sarah's cottage.

Sarah's.
Jackson blew out a breath, amazed he already thought of the place that way and none too pleased about it.

“Found a couch you can use,” he said when she opened the door. “Hope this'll do till we can buy you a new one.”

“Anything we can sit on will do.” She gave him one of her pretty white smiles and he felt the same kick in the stomach he used to feel in high school. He wished he could believe that smile was real.

With the boys' help, they situated the sofa in front of the fireplace. With the rest of the house cleaned up, the place was again in fairly livable condition. He made a mental note to have Livvy bring down a few of the extra dishes, enough to make do until he could buy some to replace the ones that were broken.

The boys took off, leaving him with Sarah.

“So when can you get away?” he found himself asking, wishing like hell he wasn't so eager to hear her answer.

“I'm working in town tomorrow, but I'll be done by three. Holly can stay at the day-care center while we go shopping if you want.”

He nodded. “Great. I'll pick you up in front of the newspaper office.”

She flashed him another warm smile and his groin tightened. He tried to tell himself he shouldn't be the least attracted to a money-hungry woman like Sarah but in the his mind's eye he was untying that long, thick chestnut braid and running his fingers through it, unbuttoning her blouse and—